


Drops of Sunshine

by andachippedcup



Series: Domestic Belle [10]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-04
Updated: 2013-02-04
Packaged: 2017-11-28 04:06:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/670090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andachippedcup/pseuds/andachippedcup





	Drops of Sunshine

Since arriving to the pink house, Belle had made many changes.

She’d painted rooms (in ‘Fabulous Grape’, no less). She’d acquired the start of a menagerie with her little piglet miscreant, she’d rid the house of clutter. She’d added little touches here and there; throw pillows on the bed and on the parlor couches, she’d organized the books in the library and redone the laundry room.

She had also turned the backyard into an oasis.

The front yard was lovely in its own right; she had a regular green thumb when it came to tending her beloved rose bushes. But the back yard? It was their private paradise. Belle had spent a regular fortune on it but of course, she didn’t know that. Money was of no concern; he’d told the people at the store to give her everything she wanted and he’d pay the cost later. She hadn’t a clue what she’d spent and he planned on keeping it that way.

Besides, he found he fancied the end product enough to justify it all.

There were a few stylish bird baths and bird feeders spread throughout the space. They had a hodge podge of trees; dogwoods and magnolias, spruce and maple. They had a wooden bench beneath one of the maple trees where they liked to sit overlooking the rest of the yard. There was a small pond with lilies that Belle had filled with a few koi fish. Flower beds abounded, crocuses and daisies, peonies and morning glories on trellises. It was a regular Garden of Eden and Belle had even tried her hand at a few that they might see some return from – basil and rosemary, thyme.

His favorite, however, was without a doubt the sunflowers.

Belle tended to them with such attentiveness that it was hard not to like the flowers. It was the sunflowers that Belle hummed to as she rid the rich soil of weeds. It was the sunflowers she talked to as she went on her merry way with the watering can, radiating life in every regard. It was the sunflowers that she went outside to watch from the bench as they turned and bent to catch the sun’s first morning rays.

It was hard not to like a plant that seemed so positively cheery. Especially when that plant brought his wife such unbridled and innocent joy.

So it was that when he awoke before Belle (a rare occurrence, especially on the weekends when she liked to rise with the sun and lounge outside with a book in hand), that he awoke and decided to surprise her. He crept downstairs and set the kettle to boil (Belle wasn’t much of a fan of coffee, so they took tea with their morning meal). He whipped up batter for pancakes and set it in the fridge to keep until she awoke. And then, thinking it might be nice to fill a vase with flowers for her, he made his way to the back door, where a grisly sight awaited him.

The little doggie door that Belle had  _insisted_ they install for the blasted pig was smeared with a brown substance that he took for mud. Little cloven hoof prints tracked from the doggie door, across the wooden floor and to the stairs, where they faded midway up the staircase.

 _The fucking pig_.

Fuming already, he wrenched the door open and stalked outside to see what kind of havoc the miscreant had wrought upon the landscaping. Last time, it had made a wallow in the middle of the grass and left clods of earth and sod strewn about. He’d thought that was bad; an ugly brown scar across their lovely green grass.

This was much,  _much_ worse.

The fucking sausage link had rolled all through the soil in the flower beds, uprooting tender shoots and stalks and leaving destruction in its wake. The most upsetting casualty of the floral victims, however, was the sunflowers.

They weren’t all ruined; some still stood, some were cockeyed at odd angles that he thought might be salvageable. But a fair few had had their stalks snapped in half or chewed into pieces. His little Belle’s flowers, her ‘drops of sunshine’, as she liked to call them, were  _snapped in half_.

He was going to snap the fucking pig in half for this. She’d have to let him. It was the ham hock’s fault, after all.

He returned to the kitchen, the ruined sunflowers in tow. He did his best to arrange them in the vase but despite his best efforts the flowers still seemed forlorn, the petals just a little too droopy, not quite as vibrant yellow as they had seemed the day before.

 _Fucking pig_.

He’d tiptoed upstairs and found the fucking thing tucked beside Belle’s feet at the foot of the bed, looking entirely too smug as it slumbered beside his wife. The little shit. It would pay dearly for this last, most grievous offense.

He crept back downstairs and occupied himself with little things. He set the table, went to fetch the newspaper, opened up the curtains to let the sun in. It wasn’t until he had finished tying back the last of them that he heard Belle stirring upstairs and the gentle patter of her feet on the stairs, followed by the most detestable oinking and clacking of hooves.

Of course the pig was following her. It knew. It knew that if it left her side he’d beat it bloody for what it had done.

“Good morning!” Belle called warmly from the foot of the staircase as she made her way to the kitchen. He smiled in return and went to meet her in the doorway, greeting her with a kiss.

“Good morning, love.” He grinned into her lips before pressing another kiss to her and then a few more along her jaw, trailing down to her neck.

“Someone’s awake.” She laughed quietly and he lifted his head to meet her gaze, offering her a sly grin.

“And someone decided to sleep in today.” He commented, trying to keep the conversation happy for as long as he could. He knew that the moment he told her about the garden, she’d be terribly sad. This was the woman that had cried over the mere _notion_  of using a mouse trap. He’d had to go buy non-lethal traps to rid them of their rat infestation. She’d certainly be devastated to learn the fate of her sunflowers.

“I did sleep in.” She smiled shyly and blushed. “I was sleepy. And then Hamlet-” the moment she said his name, the damn cut of bacon started clamoring and she paused and bent to cuddle it, the great growing thing that it was. After lavishing it with attention she straightened and resumed. “Hamlet cuddled against me and I was just so… _comfortable_.” She beamed and then gave him a little crooked, wicked grin. “I wish you’d stayed in bed.” She commented, tapping his chin as she walked by and started to fix a bowl of oatmeal for the pig.

“Hold on there, dearie.” He commented, coming up behind her and gently clasping her wrist in his hand. “There’s something I need to show you.” He hesitated for a moment, watching the flicker of concern dance across her eyes as she turned to face him.

“Is everything alright?”

“Not…not quite.” He confessed, easing her along behind him as he escorted her to the back door where the mess was still present. Though he’d wanted to clean it before she awoke, he’d known he’d need the evidence of her pet’s betrayal to convince her of the truth. “I found things like this when I woke up this morning. I’m ah…I’m afraid your ‘pet’ has been after the garden.” He explained uneasily, watching the shock pass over her.

“Oh dear.” Belle sighed heavily and bent to touch a finger to the hoof prints on the floor. Her frown deepened as she followed the tracks from where they’d originated at the back door and outside. Gold lingered in the hall; he’d expected a soft scream or some other verbal exclamation of her despair. Tears, sobs,  _something_.

It was perfectly quiet.

With a spring, he went to the door to follow after his little Belle, nearly running smack into her as he hurtled himself outside only to find her staring blankly at the sunflowers, her features utterly expressionless.

It wasn’t until his hand encircled her waist and pulled her into a warm embrace that she spoke, her voice muffled against his shoulder.

“It’s alright, really.” She mumbled and he touched a hand to the back of her head and eased her off of him so he could look her in the eyes. His little Belle should have been upset; she should  _not_  be comforting  _him_. She should be angry and hurt and ready to _dropkick the damn pig_.

“Alright, dearie? I should think not. The sausage link has vandalized your garden.  _Our_ garden.” He harrumphed but Belle would not be moved to anger.

“He didn’t mean anything by it and look at him, he’s so sorry. Aren’t you little Hamlet?!” Belle cooed as she bent to pick the porkchop up as it oinked and grunted happily and nestled against her silk nightgown.

“Sorry?  _Sorry?!_  He’s not sorry at all! Why just look at him, the smug little bastard.” He growled and wagged a finger in the pig’s face.

“Oh, yes he is! And besides, it’s nothing too terribly destructive. I can save some of them and those that I can’t will make a lovely bouquet to bring someone! Perhaps Regina.” She mused idly.

“I’ll not have that miscreant destroying all your-…  _Regina?_!” He all but bellowed, his anger at the mere mention of the woman shoving aside his anger at the damn pig. “Why in the name of all the realms would you give  _Regina_ a bouquet?  _She kidnapped you_!” He hissed, as if she needed any reminding. Belle might be capable of forgiving and forgetting about her twenty eight year imprisonment but he most certainly was not.

Belle merely met his gaze with a suppressed grin, clearly humoring him as he raged.

“Are you quite finished?” She asked and when he only spluttered angrily in return, she let slip a full grin and began to walk back to the house. “Best start breakfast, you seem hungry, if your grumpiness is anything to go off of!” She called over her shoulder, the pig still safely ensconced in her arms as she went back inside, leaving him standing in the uprooted soil, his jaw hanging low as he tried to make sense of what had just happened.

——-

Breakfast was a quiet affair.

By the time he came back inside, Belle had already poured a few servings of pancakes into the pan and was standing at the stove dutifully to watch them, lest she repeat some of her past performances and burn them through.

The silence endured even after she’d finished with the pancakes and set the heavily laden plate down upon the table. Slowly, the newspaper he’d been hiding behind folded and shrank to reveal him, still glowering as he speared a few pancakes and slapped them sharply onto his plate. Belle merely fixed him an amused smirk and shook her head before serving herself in continued silence.

He could skulk all he liked but he wouldn’t drive her to anger. She was sad about the garden, true; it wasn’t exactly a grand thing to wake up and find her pet had destroyed her favorite flowers. However, Belle was not one to linger in her grief. She made the best of situations; she always had and she was determined that she always would.

Which was why, even as they sat at what was arguably the most uncomfortable and awkward breakfast they’d ever partaken in, Belle was not angry. She was not sad or moody or any of the host of unpleasant emotions she was certainly entitled to feel as a result of the morning’s fiasco. Instead, she was too deliriously happy as a result of her research the night before. After some work on the computer, she’d found a few things out that had left her entirely pleased. Specifically? She’d managed to learn that medicine in this world was rather advanced. Including the branches devoted to the care of a pregnant woman and her child. This information had come as a welcome relief to Belle and not even a spot of gardening trouble couldn’t put a damper on her high spirits now.

Setting her fork down rather suddenly, Belle excused herself from the table and set about making oatmeal for Hamlet, having nearly forgotten about him in her distracted state. With hands that were (mostly) steady, she fixed Hamlet a bowl of the mush and, once it was ready, placed the little glazed ceramic bowl on the floor for him, where the little pig squealed delightedly and set to work devouring it.

When she looked up and saw her husband scowling darkly at him, she rolled her eyes and felt the slightest hint of a smile but it froze on her lips.

What if the reason that he hated Hamlet wasn’t because he was such an odd pet (he was, she freely admitted) but was rather because he hated sharing her attention? Was having her heart not enough? Did he need her whole heart, undivided, to be happy? It wasn’t possible, she reasoned; her husband had to understand that, thought she loved him completely, her heart was many times divided. She was a daughter and her father would forever hold her love. She was a friend and her companions too would always be with her. He could not have her entire heart but the part that he had was his most truly.

Was that enough though?

Her stomach flipped and turned uneasily at the thought as she returned to her spot at the table and then hesitated, thinking better of it and opting for the chair closest to her husband. A single eyebrow on his stoic face rose curiously but he gave no other outward sign of caring about her change of routine.

“Rumplestiltskin.” She intoned gently.

Nothing. Ah, so he was playing his no more mister nice guy role. How quaint.

“ _Rumplestiltskin._ ” She pressed and reached a hand out to his leg, just as she had once so long (and yet, not so long) ago. He turned his head to her stiffly, still clearly put out by the whole garden nonsense. The loveable old fool.

When several moments passed and he said nothing, she sighed; clearly this would fall to her. But then again, had there ever been any doubt in her mind that it would? She had always been the one to push such issues. But that had been a world ago; she’d wondered if things might be different here.

Apparently they were not  _so_ different after all.

“Do you know why I offered to babysit Alexandra?” She asked, opting to change her approach to a less direct one. She’d ease him into this.

He offered a brisk shake of his head and she nodded. She’d thought as much.

“I  _wanted_ to. I wanted to be around a child, I wanted to take care of someone.” She explained slowly, her voice soft at first but growing stronger as she found her sense of conviction. “I was frightened of them… in the other world. My mother died giving birth to me. I thought that if I ever had a child, I might do the same.” She explained, lowering her gaze at the mention of the woman she had never had the chance to know.

She heard him set down his silverware and she could almost feel his uncertainty on whether or not to go to her side as he sat across from her. Just as the chair legs scraped against the floor, Belle raised her eyes to meet his and stopped him, holding him paralyzed with her gaze.

“That doesn’t happen here.” She explained to him and he fixed her with a puzzled frown.

“What’s that, dearie?”  He asked, though his voice sounded strained and unusually hoarse to her.

Belle was still for several heartbeats, painfully aware that once she’d crossed this line, there would be no going back. But she had to do the brave thing and hope bravery would follow. Otherwise, there was no telling if she would ever get what she wanted.

“Women…women don’t die in childbirth here.” She intoned meekly and then suddenly she was rambling, the words spilling out of her mouth as she hurried to explain and to justify them. “I researched it on the computer ‘goggle’ thing-” She rushed, missing the way he stifled a grin when she referred to the internet search engine he’d shown her. “-and the risk of dying while giving birth is so low here, it isn’t even really a risk. I’m not even scared to have a baby here, not like I was in the old world. Here it’s a risk I’m willing to take if it meant we could have a child together and I know that you think I’m too young and you’re too old but I’m not,  _really_ , and you’re not either! I don’t want a baby if you don’t want a baby and I know nothing can replace your son and I wouldn’t want to even if we could because no one could come close to Bae, but I think we could be good parents. Together. But I need to know if you want to because if you do, I do too.” She finished with a sharp breath, panting lightly from the effort and emotion of telling him this deep secret. “I do.” She repeated, meeting his gaze head on.

The silence spanned some many moments between them as she fidgeted nervously, regretting her outburst as soon as she’d finished it. What had she been thinking, unloading her feelings on him like that? This was a delicate matter and she’d handled it with all the grace of a hippopotamus trying ballet. Some ‘lady’ she was.

——-

He wasn’t sure how to respond.

Selfishly, he was overjoyed. The notion that she could actually want a child with him was entirely intoxicating. The mere idea of his wife, swollen with his child, was so attractive, so desirable, he was hard pressed not to escort her up to the bedroom without another word. At the same time though, the idea of the pain she would endure, the risk of losing her or the child? Those were very real dangers he was not certain he could accept.

In silence, he folded his hands in front of himself and stared at her intently, masking a smile as she wriggled about in her chair, apparently having hit her maximum word count for the conversation.

“Dearie,” he began, choosing his words with care. Someone had to, in order to balance out the healthy dose of uncensored emotion that had just flooded the room. However, before he could get out another word, Belle interrupted him, her focus and sincerity so overwhelming that he was cowed into silence.

“I don’t want to have a lengthy debate about why you don’t think it’s a good idea.” She said simply. “I know you. I know you won’t do a thing to risk me or my wellbeing if you think there’s the slightest danger. But this isn’t just about you. It’s about me too and I _want_ this. But I  _don’t_ want to argue. So the next word out of your mouth needs to be one of two things.” She spelled it out for him. “Either yes, you do want a baby, or no, you don’t. And so help me Rumplestiltskin, if you lie to me then Hamlet can have your half of the bed while you reacquaint yourself with the couch.” She demanded sharply of him. And though he opened his mouth to protest, she was quick to stifle him. “Don’t think I won’t! Hamlet does have a certain fondness for your pillow.” She threatened and he suddenly found his protest dying on his lips.

 _Fucking pig_.

“Well?” She asked and it pained him to hear the hope in her voice, though she’d done her best to quash it. She wanted a child. And he had sworn to give her the heavens if she so desired but this? This was asking too much. Asking her to put herself through such an ordeal, an ordeal that could leave her dead? He could not do that, not even to secure her happiness.

But she had said he must not lie.

“Y-yes.” He breathed slowly and instantly victory flared within her bright blue eyes and he felt his heart hammer guiltily. The words scrambled in his head, the speech to explain to her the truth in a way that wouldn’t crush her. He rehearsed them hurriedly in his head, feeling that they were inadequate, just as the rest of him was.

“A little lad or lass with your eyes and your hair, your heart and your bravery? I want that, dearie. I do. But… I can’t ask it of you. I’ve already lost so much. Don’t ask me to risk the one thing I have left in this world.” He breathed and suddenly his wife was very close, one hand cradling his cheek as they locked gazes.

“I am not made of glass.” She reminded him gently, brushing her thumb over his cheek. “And I will not leave you. But I do want this and if you do too, please, let me do this.” She begged in a hushed tone. “We cannot give in to fear of the unknown.”

He covered her hand on his cheek with one of his own and leaned forward to kiss her sweetly, torn between a thousand different emotions but foremost amongst them was awe. Awe at his wife’s beauty and strength and bravery and countless other characteristics of hers.

“Alright.” He murmured, his voice weak from the weight of the emotional burden he bore. “For you my love, we can try.”

He felt Belle’s smile against his lips before she returned his affection with some of her own, until they were both clasping one another close, kissing passionately. They broke away for a moment and he offered her a wicked grin as he snaked an arm about her waist and guided her to the stairs.

“Best start right away, don’t you think?” He gasped between kisses and her chiming laughter was response enough as they relocated back upstairs, leaving the fucking pig alone in the kitchen to finish off its oatmeal. Just to be safe though, he still closed the bedroom door firmly behind them, determined that the pig not make a mess of anything more than it already had.

Babies, he knew they could both agree, took precedence over piglets. 

——-

It had been early afternoon when Mr. and Mrs. Gold had finally ventured out of their pink house at the end of the street and taken a short ride into town in Mr. Gold’s black Cadillac. The corner market had been their destination and it was with high spirits that a rosy cheeked Belle had dragged a more subdued but still outwardly happy Mr. Gold inside and through the aisles of goods and to the women’s products aisle.

In was there that Belle proceeded to fill the little hand basket with a multitude of pregnancy test boxes and vitamin supplements and the like as her husband watched on, dizzied. When the basket was overflowing to the point of being incapable of holding anything more, Mrs. Gold seemed to deem their shopping down and began to lead her husband back the way they had come at a very spry walk.

As they rounded the corner, however, Belle ran face first into a highly unimpressed Regina Mills. The resulting pile up prompted Gold to (somewhat intentionally, perhaps) drop the basket in his hands, spilling the contents everywhere. Likewise, Regina herself lost her grip on her basket (entirely unintentionally) and thus, both women bent to retrieve the lost items.

Belle did so with a smile. Regina, however, upon catching sight of the box labels, grew very still, her face contorted in silent rage.

“Are…all these for you, dear?” She inquired as she snatched up the last of her shopping. She cast a judgmental look Gold’s way and then fixed Belle with a cool stare, which Belle returned, bright eyed and beaming.

“Oh, well yes, yes I suppose they are.” She answered and then suddenly cast her husband a worried look. “Oh, I didn’t even ask if we should be telling people, I’m sorry!” She exclaimed apologetically but her husband fixed her with a smile and shook his head.

“I don’t mind in the slightest, dearie.” He chuckled as he came up behind her and slipped his hand about her waist protectively, fixing Regina with a gloating glare. “Mayor Mills can be the first to know that we’re trying.” He stated, emphasizing each word pointedly. “It is, after all, her we have to thank for it.” He chuckled and turned away from Regina to Belle to press a gentle kiss to her forehead.” Belle looked at her husband curiously but if Belle was curious, Regina was in an enraged state of confusion.

“What?!” She snapped and the pawnbroker returned his attention to her with a superior little smile.

“Oh why yes Mayor Mills. Thanks to you and your care in providing the town with such knowledgeable medical professionals like Doctor Whale, Belle and I feel quite safe in bringing a child into this world, knowing that Belle and the baby face so few risks to their health.” He smirked blatantly in Regina’s direction and then gently ushered his wife away but not before Belle had hers.

Without warning, she flung her arms around the Evil Queen and, to her husband’s amazement, touched her cheek to Regina’s. The mayor stood stiffly in the other woman’s embrace, shock evident on her face as Belle smiled and pulled away.

“Thank you Madame Mayor! We’ll be sure to send you an announcement once we’re expecting.” Belle beamed and with a parting wave, she darted away, followed by a very smug Mr. Gold. 


End file.
